An Iowa official testified Monday that he arrested a Des Moines Register reporter who was protesting for Black Lives Matter last year after she did not leave the area after shooting pepper spray.
Des Moines officer Luke Wilson spoke to reporter Andrea Sahouri and her then-boyfriend Spenser Robnett during the trial, saying he did not know Sahouri was a reporter at the time, reports The Associated Press. Sahouri and Robnett are facing charges of misconduct for failure to distribute and interfere with official acts.
The case against Sahouri has received local, national and international scrutiny from journalists and human rights advocates because she is believed to be the first working journalist to be tried in the US in 2018, according to the US press freedom investigation.
In his testimony, Wilson said he responded on May 31 outside Merle Hay Mall where protesters smashed windows and threw projectiles, such as rocks and water bottles, at officers. He said he fired pepper spray from a fogger to break up the crowd, but Sahouri remained.
“After I found out she was not going, I had to act,” he told the Associated Press.
The officer said he grabbed Sahouri while firing pepper spray with his other hand, hitting both her and Robnett, who returned to get her out of custody. Wilson said he thought he activated his body camera, but later discovered he did not.
Prosecutor Brecklyn Carey told jurors that footage showed police ordering a crowd including Sahouri and Robnett to disperse around 6:30 p.m. the AP.
But lawyer Nicholas Klinefeldt argued that the order at 18:30 is aimed at those blocking an intersection and that the couple followed the instructions.
He said Sahouri and Robnett were running when tear gas was deployed an hour and a half later, and the officer grabbed her and sprayed pepper while she identified herself as purple, to which Wilson apparently responded.
The Black Lives Matter protests last summer erupted nationally after George Floyd was killed after a Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.
Sahouri was one of more than 125 reporters detained or arrested during protests in 2020, and most were not charged or dismissed. Twelve other reporters are still facing prosecution, the AP reported, citing the US Press Freedom Tracker.
If convicted, the two will face hundreds of dollars in fines, a criminal record and, though unlikely, up to 30 days in prison on each case.